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I did a wide array of both self-directed and collaborative projects on staff at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. I primarily assisted the student services and advancement teams.

WRITER AND EDITOR

CURRICULUM AUDIT

I wrote and edited all manner of internal and external-facing content and communications with the School's brand and voice in mind. Most notably, I wrote or copy edited stories for the School's website about School ongoings, alumni, and students' successes. 

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I also wrote and edited:

  • the student services website (I'd link, but it's J-School folks only!)

  • materials sent or presented in the dean's name

  • materials in preparation for our advisory board meetings

  • social media posts before they go live

Some samples:

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I audited the program's entire curriculum to not only see whether courses' unit counts, materials fees, and course numbers were appropriate, but to layout a blueprint for how to align these three curriculum components with campus policies.

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To do this, I:

  • Mastered Berkeley's curriculum and fee policies and systems

  • Interviewed other programs about their curriculum processes

  • Interviewed and queried J-School instructors and surveyed current and past students

  • Guided by campus policy, I crunched the numbers to recommend unit counts, materials fees, and course numbers based, respectively, on real student workload, current materials needs, and media-platform groupings

  • Broke down proposed changes by media platform, instructor type, and magnitude of changes

  • Presented my findings to J-School leadership with a timeline and guide for implementation

Here's a PDF of my 140-page final report. (Any type of remotely sensitive material has been left out; reproduced with permission.)

CAREER FAIR

I handled the nuts-and-bolts logistics of putting on UC Berkeley National Association of Black Journalists chapter's first annual career fair — the School's largest-ever fair — which brought some two dozen media recruiters and hundreds of students and young, local journalists.​

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To do this, I:

  • Kept in constant contact with invited media outlets and accommodated last-minute additions

  • Invited young journalists from around the Bay Area and handled much of the local promotion

  • Internal and external point person leading up to and during the event for all logistical needs

  • Handled catering, registration, parking, liability/insurance documentation, and signage

  • Spent nine hours setting up, ensuring things run smoothly, and taking down the event

  • Delegated tasks to others

Here's a PDF of my handbook for how to put on another successful fair. (Any type of potentially sensitive material has been left out; reproduced with permission.)

FACULTY WEBINARS

I organized and moderated a series of webinars for prospective students in which I interviewed faculty about studying in their respective tracks and taking viewers' questions.

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To do this, I:

  • Reached out to instructors and scheduled their webinars

  • Reviewed professors' backgrounds, the media tracks they lead, and prepped my questions accordingly

  • Interviewed professors, kept the webinars on schedule, and fielded questions from each webinar's dozens of viewers

  • Video recordings of each — Investigative, Audio, New Media, and Narrative Writing — are available on YouTube

Here's a PDF of my handbook for how to put on another successful series. (Any type of potentially sensitive material has been left out; reproduced with permission.)

$50,000 LECTURE AND RECEPTION

One of the most important journalists of the 21st century gave the J-School's biggest lecture of the year following a VIP reception with our donors and the Bay Area's top journalists.

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  • Found and invited those journalists

  • Handled all catering needs and oversaw registration

  • Oversaw spending parts of our $50,000 budget

  • Adjust our lecturer's hotel accommodations

  • Draw up and execute call sheet and delegate tasks to two student assistants

  • Spent 12 hours setting up the reception, ensuring it ran smoothly, and taking it all down

  • Did everything bearing in mind our donors were attending

ANTI-RACISM: Helped lead a working group addressing systemic anti-Black and other forms of racism within the J-School. Guided by student action items, worked with faculty, staff, and alums to produce short- and long-term structural reforms related to extracurricular and public-facing activities. Turned all recommendations, feedback, and original action items into a framework and report for the dean's final anti-racism plan. 

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CAREER SERVICES REVAMP:

  • Mastered Airtable in order to better track and maintain students' career-planning needs and milestones and taught School staff how to use it

  • Consolidated Career Services' most important information and databases in one place

  • Counseled students on their résumés, cover letters, and portfolios and connected them to alumni mentors

  • Compiled a database of Bay Area news outlets, their genres, contacts, and alums who worked with them

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REMOTE LEARNING: Collaborated with Student Services and technical staff to transition curriculum to online, including mastering bCourses, Zoom, and Kaltura; coordinating resources for instructors; and facilitating instructors' technological and pedagogical preparation.

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ADMISSIONS SUPPORT: Assisted the Director of Admissions in screening applicants, researching other J-programs' admissions criteria, and interviewing applicants, and worked with the Admissions Committee to finalize admission offers.​ Learned the SLATE system.

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SOCIAL MEDIA: When needed, I took charge of our social media channels, keeping abreast of School, faculty, student, and alumni ongoings and successes, which I turned into posts (see above for samples). I kept the School's brand in mind and voice in mind.

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PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: Brought in two professional-development organizations from the wider campus to supplement our Student Services Department and counsel students on things like work–life balance and financial wellness.

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SURVEY ANALYSIS: Used Qualtrics and Datawrapper to review and analyze the results of past School social-climate surveys to understand changes in student demographics and the sources of students' negative experiences. This is a blueprint for more targeted efforts to build a more supportive and inclusive climate.

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